Ton That Dinh

Ton That Dinh (20 November 1926-21 November 2013) was a South Vietnamese ARVN Lieutenant-General during the Vietnam War who played a leading role in the 1963 South Vietnamese coup.

Biography
Ton That Dinh was born in Annam, French Indochina in 1926, and he became a protege of President Ngo Dinh Diem while serving as an ARVN paratrooper. He was rapidly promoted ahead of more capable officers, especially after he converted to Catholicism from Buddhism. At the age of 32, he became the ARVN's youngest general and commander of II Corps, but he was known to spend much of his time drinking and partying and was an egotistical, unstable, and impetuous figure. In 1962, Diem gave him command of III Corps in Saigon, as he was one of Diem's most loyal officers. However, in 1963, his colleagues appealed to his ego and gained his support during the 1963 South Vietnamese coup, and he deposed and executed Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu. He then became one of 12 members of the Military Revolutionary Council, but Nguyen Khanh later had him imprisoned on trumped-up charges of treason. Instead, he was found guilty of lax morality and was assigned to desk jobs until 1966, when Khanh was ousted and he was given command of I Corps to put down a Buddhist uprising. From 1967 to 1975, he served as a Senator, and he fled to California after the Fall of Saigon in 1975, dying in 2013.